View the strip club through the eyes of a first time stripper. Walk with in her 7 inch stripper heels as she explores working with the adult entertainment industry. Dealing with abusive men and haters along the way. See the stripper mentality and the incredible strength required to survive in this world.
Author’s Note: This long read is inspired by real life events but is fictitious. Please allow artistic license.
Strippers. What’s the image that conjures in your mind when you hear the word stripper? Is it a drop dead gorgeous girl with huge titties and an ass big enough to sit your drink on? Is it a single mum currently at university using her stripper money to buy her children things she never had? Is it a whore, a slut who fucking loves grinding on guys for money? Is it a girl who’s so poor she hasn’t eaten that day? Or is it a grown woman who enjoys dancing and love money? Chances are you’re thinking we’re all whores. Here for your entertainment, willing to do anything for YOUR money. No. We have boundaries too. We are smart. We are beautiful. Most importantly, we’re excellent businesswoman.
I was so poor. Poor as poor can be without being homeless although I was so close to being homeless. I worked full time in a shitty customer service job listening to other people’s shitty problems, earning shitty money and dealing with shitty managers who thought it was my job to bow down to the Man. I tried to resist becoming another lost cause in the world of business, losing my voice and letting the big guys talk for me. What choice did I have? Stand up for what I believed in? Or be unemployed? I stayed. I stayed for a long fucking time. I lost myself. Eat, sleep, work repeat. Every single day for a year. For what? Less that ten grand a year? I was struggling so much and so hard for so long. I barely made rent month to month, all I ate was beans on toast 3 times a day for a year. I need to get out of this rut.
Every girl has this friend. Beautiful, all the girls want to be her and all the guys want to fuck her. She’s always has the best stuff; clothes, shoes, makeup, Russian hair extensions, nails so long you wonder how she wipes her asshole, eyelashes so long (and fake) that anytime she blinks she causes a hurricane somewhere. This particular girl started working with me in the hellhole of customer service/sales and was the best. I mean the best sales woman. She could sell sand to the Arabs. She could listen to customers scream in her face, deal with the problem then brush it off with one swipe of her long hair extensions. 22 inches of not giving a fuck. I was in awe. “How do I become like her?” I’d ask this question every time I seen the bitch. She constantly had money and when I say money I mean cash. Cold hard cash. We went out for lunch one day and she said “I’ll get this babe,” handed over a £20 note then uttered “Keep the change,” with a wink to the guy behind the till. Fucking hell. She’s a drug dealer. There’s no other explanation is there? Finally, I asked her quite frankly where she’s getting all this cash from. Then she uttered the sentence that changed my life.
“I’m a stripper, you should try it,”
A stripper? Me? I don’t think so. I have zero self-confidence. I can’t even talk to a guy in the pub never mind while I’m in a thong and suspenders. “Look,” she began, “It’s a good job. Imagine having a night out but being paid for it. That’s what it’s like,” Why is she starting a day job I hear you ask? She explains she’s been a stripper for 3 years and she wants out of the game. Why would you want out of a game that pays so well? I found this out later.
“Are you forgetting that you grind on guys though? I can’t do that,” I protested violently shaking my head, so violently my glasses slipped from the bridge of my nose forcing me to push them up with one finger.
“Yes, lap dances are the main source of your income in the strip club but you can learn how to do it, I’ll teach you!” She got so excited by the prospect of having a student to teach the art of seduction to. “Come to the club tonight. You’ll see how it works but I’m telling you, you’re going to like what you see,” She got up from the table and walked out the door. The sunlight hit her golden locks just right so she glowed as she strolled down the street. I was dead set against this idea. What would my family think? What would my friends think? What do I think? I don’t even know. What do I have to lose? I might as well go to the club and check it out. Really, what’s the worst that could happen?
9pm. Wednesday night. A cold September night. I was standing at the door of the pub next to the strip club. Had to go in and get some Dutch courage before I go into a strip club for the first time. I’ve only ever seen them in movies. I was terrified, shaking like a little lost puppy. “Nope. I can’t do this, it’s so daft,” I thought as I turned on my heel after staring at the strip club door for a solid 10 minutes. As I turn around I see my friend. The golden amazon herself strolling up the road with her pink tracksuit, probably a juicy couture tracksuit with Nike trainers holding a dance gear bag. The type of bag you’d carry your pointe ballet and tap shoes in to go to a dance class. “Hi honey!” she bounced up to me, her breasts barely being contained in the zip up velour top. Fuck. She’s seen me. There’s no going back now.
She took me by the hand and let me to the door. There were two bouncers on the door that looked exactly the same. Huge, bald and wearing the same black jacket with a G4S ID badge pinned to the front. They see my amazon like friend first as smile warmly like they’re all old friends. When they see me, their smiles fade into a cold scowl. “New blood?” one of them askes. “She’s just here to see how it works Brian so be nice,” she winked and kissed him on the cheek. Bizarre behaviour for a stripper and bouncer. The two baldies let us in and the smell hits me first. A mix between Pacco Rabanne’s One Million and Britney Spears Fantasy (the original one in the pink bottle, the others are disgusting). “Jesus Christ,” I thought to myself while trying to stifle a cough. My friend showed me around. We entered the lobby first. The walls were covered in black and silver glitter wallpaper with big blow up photos in frames of tits and ass done quite tastefully I thought. The photographs were artistically done, interesting angles and not painfully obvious that it’s sexy. But it was. It certainly invoked my imagination. “This is the VIP area,” My friend started while pushing threw a saloon door. The room was small and dark. There was a silver pole dead centre in the middle of the room. All around the pole was booths with huge binders separating each sitting area, obviously for privacy. There was what looked like a ticket booth in the far corner with a heavily tattooed guy sitting in it looking like he was so bored he might top himself. “This is Nathan, he is charges admission and the VIP area. The VIP area is exactly what it says on the tin. Only for the important people or more importantly the people who have money. In this area a VIP dance is priced in 15-minute slots. £60 for every 15 minutes. The guy or girl we don’t discriminate, pays Nathan here and then you give them a lap dance for however long they’ve paid for,”
“£60 for one dance? And you get to keep that?” I asked flabbergasted.
“If you don’t have any club debt then yes that’s yours,” She must’ve seen my confused face at the word debt through the darkness. “You have to pay to be here. You pay the club commission to dance here. Like a hairdresser renting a chair. If you don’t make your commission then go home with no money and you owe the club it’s commission. It’s utter crap I know but this is how the club makes money off of us. It’s a fucking scam. We do all the work and they take all the cash. All depends on the night as to how much you pay Monday is £80 right through to Friday which is £100 and Saturday is £125. You earn YOUR money after you’ve earned theirs,” She finished with a slight tut afterwards. You could tell that as a stripper and a businesswoman she resented having to part with her money to the money grabbers that are known as strip club managers. She told me that the managers in this club, Private eyes, are all men. Of course, they are. The mangers don’t understand the basics of being a woman and more importantly, being a stripper. They assume that every stripper is a basic bitch willing to part with their money happily and not trick the system. No no, not here. She explains that everyone knows how to scam the scammers right back. After you complete a dance, the DJ puts a tally mark next to your dance name so they know how many dances you’ve done and how much you owe the club. The DJ doesn’t know how much you’ve charged the stupid drunk guy who’s desperate for you to rub your tits in his face. Now typically, for a 3-minute dance it costs £20. My friend went on to say that all the dancers, every single one of them uses this system. Offer the standard £20 dance. Fair enough some guys will pay that. They then offer the flirty thirty. £30 for a slightly longer dance but longer by seconds. Then the ultimate naughty forty. Now this is a 4-minute dance with a very brief (blink and you’ll miss it) flash of the gash. What you do think a drunk, horny male will pay for at 2:30am? If you said the naughty forty then ding ding we have a winner! These women are smart. Smart enough to play the players and reinvent the entire game. She then takes me onto the main club floor. Down the long, dark stairs to the devil’s lair. It was again dark. Is this how the girls trick the guys into giving their money? They can’t actually see what notes they’re parting with? The floor is mobbed. It’s only 9:30pm on a Wednesday night and there’s men everywhere. I pass by a few of them on the way to the bar, they’ve got a Dutch accent. She tells me that a lot of the foreign workers who come here to work on construction sites, oil rigs etc come in here because they struggle getting a girlfriend. It’s desperately sad actually, when you think about it. She kisses me on the cheek goodbye as her name (not her actual name) has just been called out to perform on the pole. I watch her walk up to the DJ booth, leave her clutch bag with him and request a song. He announces her fake name again as she walks towards the stage. Some 90’s R&B song long forgotten comes on the sound system and her spotlight shines on her as she smiles and begins her routine. Bumping and grinding on the shimmering silver pole. The light catches the glimmer of plastic on her 7-inch dancer heels. I’m mesmerised. I don’t think I take a breath throughout the 3 minutes 45 seconds she’s on stage. She’s electric. Animatic. Her song ends and the club erupts into applause. She takes a small bow and makes her way towards me again, I see small beads of sweat on her HD brow. That was it. I was hooked.
Throughout the night my friend, my glorious dancer, shows me the ropes. The literal rope that blocks customers from the dancers dressing room and how to cheat guys out of the money they worked hard for all week. I watch her flirt with guys, touch their arm and laugh fully at their shit jokes. She takes one guy by the hand and leads him into a back room. The dance room. She emerges 3 minutes later with £40. I watch her do this again, again and again. Before I even knew it, it was 3am and time to close up shop. As we walk back to her car, a brand-new fiat 500 I may add, she looks at me and says, “So, do you want to start tomorrow night?” I nod.
The next day at my boring day job I was hyper. Excited. Almost shaking with excitement. No nerves at all. At 5pm we went back to her place. A fantastic flat just outside the city. Everything in her home is perfect and brand new. Nothing from gumtree for this bitch. She makes up my face with the finest Mac can offer. She completes my curls perfectly. I brought all my sexy underwear with me. Now, here I should say my age. I’m 18. I’ve only had sex three times, never had a real boyfriend. All my lingerie is from Primark. She shakes her head and says, “Not enough,” She commands I strip naked in front of her. I follow instructions eagerly. She tells me it’s standard practice for all the strippers to share underwear. I scoff. “We wear it once, wash it thoroughly and give it back,”. Makes sense I suppose. She puts me in a green lingerie set complete with suspenders and self-sticking stockings. She gives me a pair of her old dancer heels which I place on my feet carefully. As soon I as I stand up I stumble. It’s like watching Bambi on ice. “You’ll get used to it, put all your weight on the balls of your feet and you’ll be golden,” She advices. I’m ready. My transformation is complete.
Before I can start my stripping career, I need to have a meeting with the money grabbers otherwise known as the managers. They check my age, take my driver’s license. Fully scrutinise my body from top to bottom. “She has a good set of tits for an 18-year-old,” One says, “Are they store bought?” One askes as I shake my head. “Tight little ass too,” The other says. I’ve never experience such brazened compliments if you can call them compliments. We finish the meeting and they send me to the club floor asking me to pick a song, go up on stage and take my top off. Now the nerves set in. No one has ever really seen me topless unless you count my friend whose bra I’m wearing. Anytime I’ve had sex was in the complete darkness where all my insecurities live and thrive. I pick Eminem’s Superman as my song just because it was the first one I actually recognised on the DJ’s playlist. He goes to announce me then realised he doesn’t know my name. At that moment I realise I don’t know it either. Can’t use my real name. How about Crystal? Taken. Paige? Taken. Amber? Taken. I decide on Lily. “Good,” The DJ says, “We’ve never had a Lily,”. He announces my name and I take the stage. Shaking, I cast my mind back to the night before. Watching the professionals at work, I try to emulate their moves. My friend is at the back of the club directing me signalling to me what move to do next, like a stage mum. I’m Honey Boo Boo and She’s my Mama June. She signals for me to unclip the bra and take it off. I slightly shake my head but she keeps eye contact and mouths “TAKE IT OFF NOW,”. Hands sweating, I reach round and unclip the bra. Standard clasp so no problem. I slide my straps off as seductively as I can and remove the bra. My tits are on full show for everyone to see. My nipples and all. I’ve always had a thing about how big my nipples are, honestly, they’re the size of dinner plates. No one seems to mind. Me going topless sends the crowd wild and it excites me even more. Before I knew it, the song ends and the audience is eating out the palm of my hand. That was amazing.
Now it’s time to see how my lap dancing skills are or are not. For any new girl especially a first-time stripper, the club sends in the DJ as your customer to practice on. The girls can watch you perform from the CCTV in the DJ booth. This as two functions. 1. To see how other strippers do their dances and see how filthy they are and 2. To keep the strippers safe and ensure the guys aren’t touching them. Good plan. The DJ leads me into the dance room. Again, it’s so dark with black glitter wallpaper and carpet so sticky I can barely lift up my feet to walk in further. He sits down in a booth, spreads his legs and lays his arms on the rest behind. I begin grinding on him and basically riding on him for 3 minutes. It was horrible. I can sense the awkwardness. I want the ground to swallow me up. After the horrific first time was over, he gives me tips on how to make it better or at least bearable. That first night I followed my friend’s lead and make over £100 for myself plus the £80 commission. I just made more money that I did earlier that day for 8 hours of work. Lily is born.
After that first night, I was addicted. It was a rush. Imagine going into a nightclub and every single guy wants to fuck you. They pay you compliments all night. They pay you to dance on them. It was an exhilarating thrill to dance on the pole with everyone’s eyes on you. Grinding on a guy and feeling him get hard just for you. Walking away at the end of the night with hundreds and one time a thousand pounds. This was the best job I ever had. Who wouldn’t want to do this? My family, that’s who. I told them very soon afterwards that I was stripping. They were supportive. It paid the bills, put food on the table and most importantly it made me happy. Insanely happy. Until that all came crashing down.
I had been working in Private eyes for a year now. I was still working the shitty customer service job but I was able detach my emotions from customers and not get too stressed about it knowing this is only a day job and meant nothing except a tax paying job. Do strippers pay tax? Fuck no. Declare fucking nothing. That’s why they all are dripping in designer clothes and snorting the most expensive coke on the market. Only the best for us bitches. I was doing so much drugs. An insane number of drugs. I’m surprised I didn’t die or at least seriously injure myself. I became so detached from reality. Thought I was the shit. Became so arrogant. “I can have any guy I want,” I’d say while still remaining single (by choice) I’d proclaim. That wasn’t true. Every guy wants to fuck a stripper but does he date one? No. Does he take her home to meet his mummy? No. Does he marry her? Fuck no. Does he sexually assault her while she works? Yes. Does he encourage his buddies to slap her ass as she walks by? Yes. Does he force himself on her while she leaves work? Yes. This is all the reality of a stripper. General society assume that we fuck the customers so who cares if he sexually harasses us? Assaults us? Then we say we’re uncomfortable we’re called every name under the sun? It’s a very common occurrence in the land of adult entertainment. No, not sex trade. We’re not selling our body for sex. We’re adult entertainers. Do not get them confused. After a year or so I stood up for myself against the customers and the management. I’m not just a body to be looked at. Drooled over. I’m not a mind to be abused. I’m a businesswoman. I can hustle so hard and make more money in one 6-hour shift than you can in 40 hours plus working week. And you call me a whore? Without the presence of men, I cannot make money. People used to ask me how I can allow being exploited in this way. No honey. I took advantage of men, not the other way around. I take their money and they only get a dance. A quick dick rub over their jeans and nothing else. Who’s pathetic now?
Now it’s been 18 months since I became Lily. I’m tired, exhausted actually. I work full time during the day, 5 nights a week at the club, one night at college and a distant learning university course to get my university degree started. I want a career. I want to be a professional. Respected. Stripping is good for when you’re young. Will I be stripping in my 30’s? No. Although a lot of women do and if they still have the body and confidence to do that then you fucking go Glen Coco. I’m starting to burn out. I’m so moody. I don’t see any friends. I haven’t had sex in weeks. I’ve barley ate a full meal because of time constraints. I’m losing my curves, losing my mind. The mentality of a stripper is strong. We are extremely strong women. We put up with abuse on a daily basis but as they say, fall down 9 get up 10. I’m struggling to get back up at 9. I decide to take a break, just a two-week holiday. That’s when I meet him. Him. He who will change my life. I met him on a night out with stripper girls. He was not traditionally good looking, actually looking back now rather peculiar looking. Blonde highlighted hair that was all the rage in the 90’s, a bit of a beer gut and had horrible tattoos. I mean awful, my 5-year-old niece could do better. Something about his personality drew me to him. Like a moth to a flame. Turns out I was going to get 3rd degree burns. I fell in love so quickly and so hard. I love him. I loved him so much. I worshipped the ground he walked on. I’d have drunk his bath water. He moved in with me after 3 months. He was a nightclub manager which should’ve been my first clue of trouble. After 7 months together, he slowly started to isolate me from my girlfriends. Before I knew it, I was a stranger to my girls. A stranger to my family. Only surviving to please my man. Then he begged me to quit stripping. “Please baby, please quit. You don’t need to strip anymore. I’m going to take care of you. If you quit I’ll buy you a ring and a house. We’ll have a baby within a year,” He spoke the words every girl wants to hear. Promise of marriage, children and a happily ever after. I jumped when he said to. I quit after two years of being Lily. I was happy to quit. I was getting sick of answering the silly questions from customers, “Why do you do this?”, “Are you happy doing this?”, “What does your tattoo say?” (I hated that one the most, fucking read it you fucking fanny). Grinding on guys who stink of BO and blenching beer in my face while I try to hold my breath and still dance. Having to referee fights between other dancers in the dressing room, girls being too filthy and causing problems for the dancers who had morals and boundaries, girls stealing money and possessions. I was very happy to be moving on.
I did what he said. I quit. I stopped speaking to all my girlfriends. I had no one apart from him. He asked me for money and I would always give it to him. No matter if I had none left, I’d find it and give to him. I’d lay on my back and let him do as he wanted even when I was tired, had a headache or was feeling down. I was feeling down a lot lately. I think I was depressed. This is when he told me he was leaving. He committed the ultimate sin then packed his shit and left. He never loved me. He openly admitted he was only with me for my money. He secluded me then fucking left me with nothing. Nothing. I had to rebuild. That was the hardest and darkest period of my life. Rebuilding on your own.
But I did it. I rebuild my empire. I never went back to stripping, I’m still so close to all my girlfriends I met along the way as my career as a stripper. If you can, always be friends with a stripper. They are brutally honest kind of friend you need and not ashamed to slut drop it on the dance floor, sober or not. Lily is lives on. In my underwear drawer and anytime I see a pole I can spin on.
This story is dedicated to every single woman out there. The women who have struggled. The women who did whatever they could to survive. To all the women and all the strippers across the globe. I fucking salute you.
The Wee Writer 